/three_social_media_services_worth_a_hotel_marketers_money

http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/article/three_social_media_services_worth_a_hotel_marketers_money
For the hotel industry, social media encompasses a range of internet based platforms, which include traveller review sites such as TripAdvisor and Yelp, online travel agencies like Expedia and Travelocity, as well as social networking sites, blogs and content sharing websites. The influence of sites that have a ‘Book now’ button cannot be underestimated.
The power that platforms such as Twitter or Facebook have to boost room sales can be debated but there seems to be a rising trend for companies in all markets to advertise themselves with a ‘free’ Facebook page to supplement their website. Maybe it is time for hotels to get into this game?
There is also an expectation for hoteliers to generate clever, original content on these social media sites in text, image or video format. This could be the opportunity to put staffs expertise to use. For example, the chef is the food expert; the concierge is the specialist on the hotel surroundings and front of desk staff will have all round good quality knowledge of what the hotel can deliver.
This can be tapped in to by asking employees to create some material or add a few sentences for use on these sites each month, to boost a hotels social media credentials.
Increasingly, travel research, holiday decisions and bookings are taking place online, which has seen the effectiveness of traditional marketing, such as printing advertisements, brochures and direct mail shots diminishing. Efforts need to be shifted to where the action is taking place for a hotel to be run more cost efficiently.
There are also some time-saving applications that can be used to search the web for text, photo and video mentions of a hotel and its competitors, reporting back on a daily basis with a summary of findings. For a small cost, hoteliers can monitor performance, share and respond to feedback and identify areas where improvement needs to be made.
Through the restructuring of resources and the utilisation of newly available tools, social media can become a strong ally in the management of hotels, the strengthening of reputations and the creation of long-term future business
social media has a lot of positive impact and the cost that is creating can be taken from other marketing tools budget and can be reused  in profitable way so my opinion that the cost of social media is not that big comparing to others marketing  tools that is why it better to reorginize and  rebudget the marketing department budget in way that can cover the cost  without feeling that we are spending extra money on investing on social media